Other People’s Boxes

As mentioned in the previous post, it’s thanks to Tom Douglas that I found myself on Ebay searching for recipe boxes. There were a bunch that I could easily glance past: too new, not used looking, no recipes inside. I wanted to find a box that showed some history, some use, like it had been a cherished resource in someone’s (or a few someones’) kitchen for many years.

I found what I was looking for with this box. I loved the design that harked back many decades, and that it looked well loved while still being in great shape. And I so appreciated that it was pretty full with recipes—feeling some immediate anticipation about what I’d find inside.

I couldn’t help but dive right into in when the box landed on my front doorstep. And I’ll loop back to it many times over the coming months, I’m sure, as a touch-point for various themes I’ll be discussing here. Such as consideration of the types of recipes included, what form they’re in, what era they’re from. As a write this, questions that arise that I’ll keep in mind when I go back through inclue: how many sources are represented? is it clear which were written by the primary owner? what’s the rough proportion recipe cards vs clippings from papers and magazines? and what picture do the recipes paint about the life of the collection and the people represented, what years , locations, etc.?

When we moved into our 1950s house, tucked among things in the basement was a very nondescript version of a recipe box. The simple dark-green metal box has no decoration on it whatsoever, when I opened to find it held recipes, I figured I’d found a treasure. I remember being dismayed by how few recipes it held and that they didn’t seem to reflect much personality, a particularly mundane collection.

That was a couple decades ago and with this new recipe-box path I’m on, I figure I owe to that recipe box—and whoever contributed to it—to give it another chance. I will go back through with the same curiosity, the same questions, I mentioned above. It’s a good lesson for me to learn that every single recipe box has some sort of story to tell. And it’s only natural that those stories come in a wide ranges of shapes and sizes.